FRANCAISEntraide et Fraternité / Broederlijk Delen - History
1990-1999
-From 1990, Belgium: EF takes part in the international campaign “Jubilee 2000” to demand the cancellation of Third World debt. It submits 50,000 petitions to the Belgian Minister of Finance.
-Since 1991, Guatemala: EF and a local NGO, SERJUS (Services Juridiques et Sociaux), start a long-term partnership to empower rural Mayan communities through agricultural processes that foster food security, community organization, and the formation of indigenous leaders.
-1993-1994, Mexico: EF and a local NGO, DESMI (Desarrollo Ecónomico y Social de los Mexicanos Indígenas), support agricultural development in Chiapas rural indigenous communities.
-1994-1997, Rwanda: Like the majority of Christian missionaries in the country before the genocide, BD supports the Hutu-majority government against a Tutsi-dominated rebellion. According to Stephen John Stedman and Fred Tanner, it also remains an outlet for extremist Hutu propaganda and revisionist history after the massacres. For instance, BD denounces a “second genocide” against the Rwandan refugees in Zaire from 1997 onwards. Yet it doesn’t acknowledge that many of them had in fact played an active role in the 1994 genocide. In the same vein, it overestimates the number of missing refugees in Zaire up to 700,000, as against 170,000 according to reliable estimates. Much later on, however, BD will work with a Rwandese NGO, AMI (Association Modeste et Innocent), to facilitate reconciliation in the post-genocide context.
-Since 1996, Guatemala: EF and a local NGO, CDRO (Cooperation for Rural Development in the South-West), start a long-term partnership to support small-scale sustainable agriculture in Mayan communities.
-1997-1998, Belgium: EF increasingly relies on co-managing with Action Vivre Ensemble. From 1998, the two sister organizations merge under one common board, yet continue operating with different names. They also confirm their participatory approach to development.
-Since 1998, Haiti: EF and a local NGO, PAPDA (Plateforme haïtienne de plaidoyer pour un développement alternative), start a long-term partnership to help women and combat rural poverty and exclusion. From 2007, EF will also work with another organization, Chandèl, to support the education of children in a poor neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Bas-Delmas.
